Aruba Moves Wireless Management to the Cloud

The whole point of having a wireless enterprise infrastructure is to increase mobility and reduce cables. A new effort from Aruba Networks aims to help cut the cord everywhere in a network.

The whole point of having a wireless enterprise infrastructure is to increase mobility
and reduce cables. Yet for many enterprises, managing those wireless LANs (WLANs)
requires an on-site server. Wireless networking vendor Aruba Networks is now aiming
to change the wireless management paradigm with a new cloud-based Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) offering.

The company's new SaaS solution is called AirWave OnDemand (AoD) and provides a
cloud-based version of the AirWave Wireless Management Suite (AWMS) to remotely monitor
and manage enterprise WLANs.

The move is seen by Aruba execs as one of the final steps needed to help enterprises
"cut the cord" with their wired networks, and to ensure more end-to-end wireless
infrastructure.

"In terms of adoption, our goal is to remove all the tethers that connect users to
wired networks and then to streamline all the operations management of the resulting
systems," Mike Tennefoss, head of strategic marketing for Aruba, told
InternetNews.com.

Until now, the way that Aruba offered its customer WLAN management was by of its
AirWave Wireless Management Suite (AWMS), which requires enterprises to host the software
within their own datacenters.

It's a model that has worked well for some companies in Aruba's target market -- but
not all.

"What we've noticed over the last six to 12 months is that more and more of the
enterprise market space is adopting WLAN as either their primary network access method or
as a mission-critical piece of their network access that they put out to end users,"
Bryan Wargo, general manager of Aruba's Airwave division, told InternetNews.com.
"Unfortunately, many medium-sized enterprises don't have the skill sets or the time to
procure traditional enterprise software and servers to host management in their own
datacenters."

On the back end, the way the in-the-cloud wireless management offering works is all
about using standard networking protocols and some virtualization.

Wargo explained that once a user places an order for the service, they get an
authorization code. That code gets entered on the Aruba site, which then automates the
process to spin-up a virtual instance of the software, so each enterprise gets its own
unique instance. Users can then log into the management console using a Web
interface.

Getting the actual WLAN connected to the cloud involves having the enterprise set up a
VPN connection from its network to Aruba. Once the VPN connection is enabled, the AoD
service then uses standard management protocols like
SSH and
SNMP to manage the WLAN.

Once connected, AoD users can manage and monitor WLAN settings and devices as well as
generate usage and compliance reports.

The AoD offering isn't limited to Aruba's own access points and wireless controllers,
either. Wargo said the service can manage WLAN equipment from multiple vendors including
Cisco, HP and Motorola, among others.

"We've been working over the last six to 12 months to remove as many barriers as
possible for organization to move to wireless as their primary access method," Wargo
said.

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